Gestalt, design & technology of the touch ebook

Gestalt, Interaction & Techof the touch ebookThe strange case of Dr. Ebook and Mr. Device

What is a book?

“ 1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers. 2. a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc. 3. a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions. - Random House Dictionary / Dictionary.com

The deﬁnition of book is already quite fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy

Photobook

Gamebook

Popup books

“ You cannot open a book without learning something. - Confucio

What is a book, really?

An interaction view:

1 We are conditioned by portion sizes: by default, we try to ﬁnish our food portion. Rolls B.J., Morris E.L., Roe L.S. (2002) “Portion size of food affects energy intake in normal-weight and overweight men and women”

2 Closure: the mind’s tendency to see completeness of forms from an incomplete stimuli. Wertheimer M., Rock I., Palmer S. (early 20th century) Gestalt Psychology Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

1 + 2 Let’s think for a while of the book as a cognitive object perceived as a single item that satisﬁes a promise through reading.

Ok, but…what about content?

Storytelling

...or just a guide.

Two basic narration interaction modes: Attitude + Knowledge

Sequential experiential / educative PASSIVE“Tell me something”

Associativeinquisitive / creative ACTIVE“Let me choose”

The new coming of the ebook

Why didn’t ebooksreally work before Kindle?

Hitchhiker’s Guideto the Galaxy“A screen, about three inches by four,lit up […] a large red button at thebottom of the screen and words beganto undulate across it. At the same time,the book began to speak”

Star Trek’sPADD“Consisting of a large touchscreendisplay and minimalistic manualinterface or control panel (generallyonly one or two buttons), the typicalPADD is used for a variety offunctions.”

“ I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx

book =

content +

physical support!

ebook ‣ screen resolution ‣ reﬂection & illumination ‣ weight

Kindle’s interaction paradigmis simple

open/closeprevious page next page read

(additional complexity)

open/close turn page read

...or is it?

Don’t forget: habitshapes behaviours

The reading paradigm left-right (“western languages”)top-bottom gestalt

The touch age

Touch devices introduced a newinteraction paradigm

Skeuomorphism

Let’s look around...

The Economist

Financial Times

The New Yorker

Interview

Type Specimen

book/turn + web/scroll

The bookthat isn’t a book

FlipboardSocial Magazine

ZiteSocial Magazine

PulseSocial Magazine

Formats

2000 2007 mobi azw‣ PalmDOC ‣ PalmDOC‣ “HTML” ‣ “HTML” ‣ Amazon DRM

2007 2011? 2.0 3.0‣ XHTML1.1 ‣ HTML5‣ CSS2 ‣ CSS3 ‣ May optionally support scripting

“This speciﬁcation does not mandate speciﬁc rendering behavior” (2.0)“Reading Systems with a CSS Viewport should support all CSS constructs included” (3.0)

1999 2012 2022 4.01 5.0 Candidate‣ The web as we know it. ‣ Video ‣ Audio ‣ Animations ‣ Visual effects ‣ Semantics

“User agents are expected to support CSS” (5)“The term expected in this section has the same conformance implications as the RFC2119- deﬁned term must” (5)

Yes or No isn’t enough!

Francesc Trovar Spain

Davide Tarasconi Italy

Benjamin Law Hong Kong

Timbuktu Team Italy

Florian Franke Germany

‣ WebKit engine‣ html5 (multimedia)‣ minimal admin debris‣ opensource (commercial use)‣ book:// identiﬁer protocol‣ Hpub simple packaging

‣ Everything you can do on the web.WebKit ‣ Safari, Chrome, Android, iOS, Blackberry, WebOS.

‣ Nothing new,HTML5 & nothing different, no new knowledge. Hpub ‣ Just ZIP it.

‣ Minimal UI.No admin ‣ Everything is book. ‣ Everything is in debris control of the author.

‣ Identify book. ‣ Locate & download.book:// ‣ Update. ‣ Link between books.

URI = Uniform Resource Identiﬁer Web-compatible “ISBN”book://example.org/path/book/page.html#paragraphPROTOCOL PUBLISHER BOOK PAGE PARAGRAPH

How to use Baker

1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish

1 Design 2 Package 3 PublishACTIONS‣ Think‣ Write‣ DesignTOOLS‣ Paper‣ Photoshop‣ HTML editor

1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish ACTIONS ‣ Read Hpub format ‣ Organize ﬁles TOOLS ‣ Zip

1 Design 2 Package 3 Publish ACTIONS ‣ Register ‣ Submit ‣ Wait TOOLS ‣ Mac ‣ Xcode

“ Typography is the art of creating and setting type with the purpose of honoring the text it sets. - Pascal Klein Thanks to Matteo Balocco

The overalluser experience

readMost ebook devices

read annotate

buy read annotate

ﬁnd buy read annotate Kindle + Store iBook + Store

ﬁnd buy read annotate discuss quote

borrow lendﬁnd buy read annotate discuss quote

borrow lend PRIVATEﬁnd buy read annotate discuss quote

SOCIAL borrow lendﬁnd buy read annotate discuss quote

Each one is a potential service / app borrow lendﬁnd buy read annotate discuss quote

Your own idea

Minimum Viable Product

TEST TEST TEST

Teamwork.

2 × 2 suggestions

for Designers1. don’t assume an interaction paradigm2. gestalt (closure) is critical

for Publishersfor Authors1. don’t forget the whole user experience2. the book experience is social - in its own way

“ Complicare è facile, semplificare è difficile. Per complicare basta aggiungere, tutti sono capaci di complicare. Pochi sono capaci di semplificare. - Bruno Munari

Davide ‘Folletto‘ Casali intenseminimalism.com @folletto folletto@gmail.comLaurea Magistrale in Informatica UmanisticaUniversità di Pisa, 20 may 2011infouma.di.unipi.it

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Gestalt, design & technology of the touch ebook

by Davide 'Folletto' Casali

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